A locomotive + 22 carriages, including a motorail, ~600 meters long, and ~1100 tones of weight, it travels at an average speed of 85km/h, we thought we would reach our destination in a heartbeat. But Australia is large, and the train makes stops on the way. We departed Darwin on Wednesday morning, and less than 4 hours later, the train stopped in Katherine, a town in the middle of nowhere, for 5 hours. Yes, 5 hours. This is a scheduled stop and lots of tour operators cater to the Ghan travelers offering 3-4 hours tours for all tastes and levels of activity. We didn't want to go on another tour (besides, this part of the world is pretty expensive), so we chose the most unlikely option: the Katherine Country Club was offering rail passengers to play lawn bowls and enjoy an afternoon tea. We even got a membership card valid for a year (in case we want to go back to Katherine). This was the first time we were playing this game. We had lots of fun, see, I didn't even know that the bowl was not round and had a weight. I think we might have found the ideal sport for when we become really really old. The clubhouse was no more than a sports bar with several TVs, a few betting machines and big guys drinking beer. The tea quality was at that level.
Back on the train, the landscape continued to show exactly the same for hours on end: plains. Red earth, green-yellowish scrubs, little trees, flatness.
The following morning we arrived at Alice Springs, or "The Alice", as locals call it. It felt like an American Midwest city, small low simple houses, square blocks, many Aborigines just sitting around or begging, lots of 4WD, big white tourists walking in tour groups. Being so flat, it is ideal for biking, so that's what we did. We biked by the famous Todd river that cuts through town. The river is famous because it is absolutely dry, except for a handful of times in decades. You'll see a picture of me on the dry riverbed, and also another of a puddle of water, that's the original Alice Springs, but later it was downgraded from "springs" to just Alice Hole, since that's all it turned out to be.
We stopped by the Royal Flying Doctor Service base. This is a health care service provided to the people in the outback. People living in remote areas contact doctors by radio, and if needed, the patient gets evacuated by plane. It is not hard to find an airstrip in outback ranches. Fantastic service. It has been operating since the late 1920s and Australians are very proud of it, as they should be. The same radios were used by the School of the Air, an educational classroom for children in remote outback stations. Students used to get lessons by radio, now they use more advanced technologies. I'm not sure this school is working that well, a waitress that night didn't know what Argentina was. But the meal was quite good. We had dinner at The Overlanders Steakhouse, and not only we enjoyed a good steak, we also sampled crocodile, kangaroo, emu, and camel, while listening to a Rolf Harris tape with his long set of Australian all-time classics.
Now we are on a bus heading to Ayers Rock. The driver has advised that there are only 2 turns on the road to get there from Alice Springs.
Mercedes
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